


Beginnings

by Ithika



Series: Remorseless [2]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Gen, Origin Story, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-19
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-24 17:34:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3777394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ithika/pseuds/Ithika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles Vane is not yet a man. He knows the sea, but has no crew. Mild Season 1 spoilers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> One of a series of drabbles written to explore and expand upon the character of Charles Vane in Black Sails. This focuses on Vane in his late teens, discovering where he got his letters and perhaps the beginnings of the formidable reputation that he holds as a man.
> 
> Originally posted at my Charles Vane RP tumblog, thatdamnbutcher.tumblr.com.

He felt something crack and splinter as his fist connected hard with the other man’s jaw. Not enough pain to be the bones of his hand, and the young man grinned, a hyena’s grin. The grin of a hungry-eyed predator ready to make the kill. 

The man was falling now, and a young Charles Vane let him go, panting for a moment on the deck, bloodied fist raised, ugly sword clenched in the other. A moment wasn’t too long to wait, but he was still breathing, so the ugly thing slid into the fallen man’s belly. It went in so easy, so sweet. The green privateer watched the light flee from the Spanish sailor’s eyes - not for the first time, and far from the last. 

The captain had wanted words with him, after, with young Vane who killed so well, but too easily.  _Why didn’t he kill them clean_ , the officer had meant to ask the callow youth, but one look in the lad’s eyes and he had his answer. 

There was no fear of Gods or Kings in those blue eyes, no love for country. There was just the sea, wild and roiling and fathomless. The captain knew he couldn’t have the lad whipped for fighting too  _well_ , so he took him from his regular duties and made the boy his errand runner - fetch the charts, young Vane, tidy my quarters, help the cook. 

He’d meant to teach the boy to want better things - he was smart, despite his rough origins, and he learned his letters quickly for one so late in his teens. The Captain thought he could even be an officer, if he learned to fight clean and kill swiftly - no more shanks in bellies, no more skulls shattered under fists. 

But the Captain’s good intentions only served to stifle the lad, and while he did indeed learn - charts bared their secrets to him, and his letters he devoured eagerly, for even at 17 Charles Vane understood that strength was knowledge as well as steel and brawn and blood - his wild heart was not content to be an errand boy, nor a midshipman.  

_Like a sheep dog that learned the taste of lamb’s blood_ , Charlie-boy (they called the lad) heard the old boatswain call him in his cups ashore one night, not long before [the war ](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Spanish_Succession)ended. A table over, friendless Vane clenched his jaw and ground his teeth, glaring into his own cup - a heavy, metal flask.  He breathed heavily, and the boy that was a slave and then by chance a sailor managed to master himself. Shaking, he listened.

_Nothing for it. Mad dogs and mad boys alike need to be put down. No place for butchers in the Royal Na -_ the words stopped coming out of him then, as Charlie-boy’s knife slid up through the soft flesh of the man’s back, just below the ribs. All the young man’s strength ripped the knife upward and outward, and the old man fell. 


End file.
